Selection Brush Tool

The Selection Brush Tool in Photoshop Elements (Versions 6, 7 and 8)
pretty much mirrors what
the Quick Mask does in the full version of Photoshop.

The
Quick Mask is a very, very versatile selection tool which really shines
when extracting a complicated object because extreme precision is easy
to achieve and it is flat out easy to use.

The exact same can be
said for Element's Selection Brush - accurate, precise and easy - what
more can you ask for in a selection tool?

How would you approach
this image if someone gave it to you and asked you to remove the
unsightly background, leaving only the juggler and the flames?

Normal selection tools may work but why go to all of that bother
when you have the Selection Brush sitting there on the toolbar and if
you have Elements then there is a good chance you have a wonderful
Bamboo or Intuos pen in your hand and the tablet right there in front
of you!

Selection
Brush Options

This is the options bar for the Selection Brush and there are not many
of them ...

From left to right, they are ...

Add to the Selection. When this option is
chosen the red
overlay is applied to the image and you paint out the parts you want to
keep.

Subtract from the Selection. When this
option is chosen the
red overlay is applied as you paint. The red overlay is the
part
that will not be kept so the selection will need to be inverted before
it is promoted to a new layer,

Brush Tip Shape.

Brush Size.

Mode.
The Mode can be either Mask or Selection. With Mask
selected a red overlay is applied to the image and the red overlay is
the part that will be deleted. With Selection active each
brush stroke paints a selection - you know - the marching ants.

Brush Hardness.

Overlay.

Overlay Color. The default is a ruby red
overlay but it can be changed to any color you want.

Selection Brush
Advantages

The advantages of the selection brush are many and include ...

You can zoom in an out on the part you are painting
and work with any brush size, even down to 1 pixel.

Each
part of the selection can be promoted to a new layer and the document
can be saved as a .psd
file which keeps all of the layers. This
means you can work on a project for awhile, save your work and come
back to it sometime later.

It is easy to rotate the image if
you have any problems painting horizontal lines (like I do).
It
is much easier to paint vertical lines.

This method can be used with very complicated images
which includes lots of detail - even bits of stray hair.

With
either a Bamboo or Intuos tablet the painting part (and it can be
intensive with this technique) is much, much easier than with a mouse
or trackpad.

Extracting
The Juggler

If you have selected Add
To The
Selection as your method of selecting then the image is
completely
covered by the ruby red mask - like this ...

Granted you can decrease the opacity of the mask (in the Options Bar)
but it is still somewhat
annoying to look at. Your job at this point is to paint out the
portion of the image that you want to keep - in this case it should be
the juggler and the flying flames.

An easier method of using the Selection Brush is to use the Subtract
From Selection
option so that every place you paint turns red making it easy to see the
selection. With this approach, however, whatever your turn
ruby red with
the selection brush will be masked out or deleted if you will.

The way around this is to go to Select
> Inverse after you have done your painting.

Layer One

The
flying flames in the top left corner were painted first. When
you
have finished your first area with the Selection Brush just click any
tool and the ruby red will turn into the normal marching ants selection.

Take a good luck at the selection to see if it needs any modification.
If it does then open Refine Edge ... in
the options bar.

This is the dialogue that will load up.

What this dialogue does is give the opportunity to modify your
selection with easy to use sliders.

You can ...

Smooth out the selection

Feather the selection

Contract or Expand the selection

With this selection brush project some of the selections will look best with some
feathering and some of them will not need any feathering.

The flames in the original image have a glow around them with is very
difficult to select but easy to feather. Unfortunately, I didn't do any
feathering until after the final flame selection and then had to go
back and do the selections once again.

Red Mask Overlay

Resulting Selection

The first selection is done and the juggled flame can be promoted to a
Layer all on it's own - remember to invert
the selection because the part you masked will not be
included if you promote to a new layer as is.

Promoting selected parts to
a layer until they are all on their own layer and the image is
completely extracted makes the job much easier.

If you mess up (unlikely, right) you simply throw out the layer and
start again.

To make it even easier - give each layer a name.

Layer Two

Once
you have the first selection on a layer go back to the Background layer
and start working a new area in the same way. I started
working
the top of the juggler ...

This
took a bit more time than the first selection. There was a
lot of
zooming in an out to see how things were moving along. The
promotion to a new layer produced this selection ...

Closer inspection of the layer showed a couple of problems.

The right side of the jugglers face has a rather
unsightly shadow falling on it.

Part of the hat brim on the right side (the left as
you look at it) seems to be missing.

Hat Brim

The
hat brim was fixed first by deleting the new layer (remember the
earlier comment about using multiple layers) and stepping back to the
last selection brush stroke in the Undo
History (this thing is invaluable with a project like
this).

I switched to the Add To
Selection
option and removed most of the hat brim on the right side of his head
(the left as you are looking at it). I zoomed out to try and
get
some sense of where the brim should be - it was difficult because the
brim is almost the same color and texture as the background - then
zoomed in and switched back to the Subtract
From Selection.

A bit of perseverance and guessing and a new hat brim was selected.

The Shadow

The new selection was promoted to another layer and the dark part of
the face was fixed with the Clone
Tool.

As
Selected

Corrected
with the Clone Brush

Now
this is not a glamor shot - the shadow on his face was a titch
distracting and the overall picture will look better with it removed.

Layer Three

The next section was relatively easy. There were a lot of
straight edges and not much fiddly stuff.

Here's a hint when working with straight edges ...

Left
click or tap your pen once at the beginning of the line, lift the pen
or release the left mouse button, move to the second point, press and
hold the shift key and left click or tap the pen once again - voila - a
nice straight line. The lines can be long or short and it
will depend on the part you are working with.

That was used to work up the side of the pants.

Layer Four

Only
one more section to do - the final flame off to his right and it was
quick and easy - just like the flames in the top left of the picture.

This selection was promoted to a Layer just like all of the others.

Completing The
Selection

Here is the final layers palette with the original (Background layer)
and the four new ones ...

Flame Bottom

Pants

Juggler 1

Flame

The next few step are:

Delete the Background Layer.

Create
a new Layer and move it to the bottom of the Layer stack.
This
Layer will be filled with a color or a Gradient or with another image.

Add a striking or interesting backdrop on this new
Layer.

Delete the
Background Layer

The
Background Layer has a little lock icon off to the right side which
means
that it cannot be deleted - but it has to go, so ...

double click on the Background Layer
which will bring up the New Layer Dialogue - it will be named Layer 0.
Click OK and you will see the name has changed to Layer 0.

Now click on the little Trash icon in the Layers Palette and you
will be left with the four (or however many) Layers you
created.

Add A New Blank
Layer

Select the bottom Layer in the stack and then click on the New Layer
icon (or, Layer >
New Layer) at the top of the Layers Palette.
This will add a new Layer directly above the bottom layer.

Drag the bottom Layer above the new Layer.

Add A Backdrop

Start off with a nice contrasting color to confirm that everything is
OK. I filled the bottom layer with black and ...

much to my surprise (and embarassement) I found that something was
missing on the very first layer I created - yikes.

Stepping
Back

It's a good thing I used layers
and saved the image as a .psd after each new layer was created, isn't
it?

The little patch of flame to the left of the big flame was not totally
selected - the outside was done but not the inside.

So out went the layer and this part was re-selected with the Selection
Brush.

In addition to re-selecting some feathering was added to
include some of the glow around the flames.

Now that looks much better. Not only is the little patch of
flame completely selected - the feathering added a really nice glow
around the flame.

That is the way is should have been selected in the first place but not
every image will benefit from feathering.

This one will because of the nature of the flame - it glows and the
glow should be included.

What this means is that the flame on the bottom left of the image needs
to be re-done with some feathering.

Multiple layers and saving the file in the .psd format is a good thing!

Here is the bottom left flame after re-selecting and adding some
feathering - and, of course, there are more problems!

Some
background is showing

Background
cloned out

Some of the background items were showing through the feathering so
they were cloned out to create a more uniform glow around the flame.

Adding A Backdrop

This is the easiest part of the procedure - adding a nice backdrop to
set off the multiple selections.

The choices are ...

Solid color.

Gradient

A different image.

And maybe some Layer Styles (drop shadow or glow)
depending on the image.

Experiment with the Layer Blend Modes.

Merge The Layers

This is the first thing that has to be done - merge the different
selection layers together. That is done by Ctrl clicking each
of them until they are all selected and the Ctrl-E or Layer > Merge Layers.

Four
Layers Selected and merged into

one
Layer above the backdrop layer.

Now some different and interesting backdrops can be added to the bottom
layer.

This is a foreground to background color radial gradient. The
foreground and background colors were sampled from the selections
with the orangy color taken from one of the flames and the
blue taken from the jugglers shirt.

And just for the heck of it and because I can a drop shadow was added
to the top layer to give just a bit of separation between the juggler
and the backdrop.

Now it's your turn to take the Selection Brush out for a test drive.
Start with something simple to get the feel of it and then go
after something a lot tougher.